07/01/2019

In Medicine, Alan de Pinho found Mathematics.

Em 2017, Alan veio ao Rio receber o ouro conquistado na OBMEP

Karine Rodrigues

Alan grew up in Triângulo, a neighborhood in Candeias, a municipality of about 80,000 inhabitants in the Salvador Metropolitan Region. A curious coincidence, considering he is passionate about mathematics. There are others: he and his two brothers were born in years that form an arithmetic progression (1995, 1998, 2001); in addition, he is the grandson and son of mathematics teachers, a characteristic that, on reflection, should be excluded from the list of coincidences and considered one of the reasons why the young man became interested in the subject.

At 20 years old, about to begin his fifth semester in the Medicine course at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Alan says that his first memory of Mathematics is related to geometry problems. “I had a lot of fun. To the point of losing track of time,” he recalls, remembering his initial difficulty in the area: negative numbers. He was in the 5th grade at the Francisco Pedro de Oliveira Military Police School, and the complexity of Mathematics only increased his curiosity and desire to study.

The first OBMEP was the following year. He remembers well that, after 45 minutes of the exam, he was alone in the classroom. Embarrassed, he decided to leave. But what he had done up to that point was enough to guarantee an honorable mention. He also gained new motivation for his studies. “With OBMEP, I became more dedicated and determined. The extra stimulus to study was fundamental for me to dream bigger,” he says, adding that his liking for mathematics turned into a passion after participating in the Olympiad.

The effort paid off: she won bronze and, as an OBMEP medalist, secured access to the Junior Scientific Initiation Program (PIC), which she describes as remarkable. The classes were taught at UFBA, in Salvador, where, many years before, her mother Magali had attended as a student.

“It was my first experience at a university. I met people with different worldviews and dreams. Being among them, who dreamed big, made me see that I was also capable of achieving something. I started wanting to study in the capital. The course itself was great. And I made many friends, whom I still see today.”

The PIC classes quickly impacted his school routine. In the last four years of basic education, he achieved an average grade of 10 in Mathematics, a feat he repeated in the National High School Exam (Enem). Other doors opened, such as participation in the Intensive Training Olympic Center (Poti). This initiative of IMPA and the Ministries of Education and Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications guarantees free Mathematics classes for students interested in participating in OBMEP and OBM.

At OBMEP, Alan also won a silver and a gold medal. He was in the PIC for six years and in the Mentors Program for one year. This initiative is aimed at scholarship recipients from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) who have already participated in the PIC more than twice, one of them as a high school student.

Mother and teacher

Praised by parents at one of his numerous awards ceremonies.

Alan Gualberto de Souza de Freitas de Pinho participated in the OBMEP (Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad for Public Schools) for the first time, encouraged by his mother. Magali bought a math exercise book and prepared activities to be done at home. He remembers the episode in detail, even the most striking concepts: notable products and calculating the greatest common divisor (GCD). "Both were essential for the logical reasoning I developed from then on."

Magali began teaching in high school, helping students who struggled with the subject, almost 30 years ago. Although she became her son's teacher from the 6th grade onwards, at home, this had been going on for a long time. In primary school, she answered questions and introduced concepts to Alan. She noticed that, like her in childhood, he enjoyed mathematics.

According to Magali, OBMEP opened doors and awakened Alan to more complex topics in Mathematics. “The PIC classes were also very important in his educational life. The teachers are highly qualified and committed. The teachers at the regular school were important as assistants in his education and motivated him to overcome the obstacles in his educational life,” she states.

Regarding his mother and teacher, Alan recalls a "role reversal" in 2012. At the time, while taking a practice exam to prepare for the National Network Professional Master's Program (PROFMAT), she had a question about a combinatorics exercise. Who helped her? Alan, who had seen the material in the PIC program. After she passed the exam, mother and son began attending university together. She attended PROFMAT classes, and he attended Poti and PIC classes.

Alan com os amigos medalhistas da OBMEP, na Semana Olímpica de 2017

Memorable Masters

When it comes to teachers, Magali reigns supreme in Alan's heart. But he says he's known other memorable teachers. Time has faded the name of his 4th-grade teacher, but not the memory of how much she encouraged him with increasingly complex challenges. With Jorge, from 9th grade, he achieved a perfect 10 in Mathematics for the first time. Maria Helena's "structured classes and exercise lists" were also remarkable, as was the encouragement from Acélio and Felipe, from high school.

“For someone to like anything, there has to be a stimulus. Many say that Mathematics is difficult, complicated, boring. But a teacher who shows Mathematics in a playful way sparks the students' interest. The teacher is fundamental,” says Alan, citing what he considers a particularity of the discipline: “It's a ladder of knowledge where the lack of one step prevents you from stepping on the next. A poor understanding of one topic prevents the understanding of the next, and this generates even more disinterest.”

In Poti, Alan also met remarkable teachers, such as Tertuliano (combinatorial analysis and probability), Samuel (number theory), and Cléber (geometry), who voluntarily gave classes on weekends to those interested in the OBMEP and OBM. "I remember that the detailed resolution of old problems from national and international olympiads was something that encouraged me to believe more in my potential and to see that, often, the limit to solving a problem is the tools we have at our disposal."

Professor Samuel Barbosa Feitosa, from UFBA since 2012, remembers the young medalist well. They met that year during Poti's training at the university. "He was one of the most diligent and enthusiastic students. His excellent results were no surprise," he says, who has been training students who participate in the Mathematics Olympiads since 2004. He also witnessed Alan's engagement in the OBMEP Mentors Program.

“He continued participating in our training even after he had decided to study Medicine. His dedication to learning Mathematics, regardless of whether he was preparing for an Olympiad exam, reveals an important quality that will certainly accompany him as a future doctor,” says Samuel, a member of the National Olympiad Committee of the Brazilian Mathematical Society (SBM).

Industrial Hub and Medicine

“Não existe ciência sem as ferramentas básicas, e uma delas é a matemática”

Alan completed his high school education as a chemical technician at the Federal Institute of Bahia. At the time, he returned to live in his hometown, Salvador. During high school, he interned for a year at the Camaçari Industrial Complex, shadowing engineers and technicians, a period he considers a turning point in his career.

Although he considered applying to the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA) and the Military Engineering Institute (IME), he opted for Medicine. “I wanted to do work with social impact and help people more directly,” says Alan, who entered UFBA through the ENEM exam in the first semester of 2017. “Learning about the workings of a complex system, like the human being, is motivating and intriguing,” he adds, a collector of medals in scientific olympiads. He has won more than thirty medals in Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, and Astronautics.

Choosing medicine doesn't mean abandoning mathematics. He says he finds it curious when someone enters health-related courses and celebrates being free from mathematics.

“There is no science without basic tools, and one of them is mathematics, which is very present in the field of biological sciences, especially medicine. It is involved in decision-making, whether for diagnosis, screening, or prescription, when we take into account the prevalence of each pathology, the cure rate with each medication, data such as age, sex, region, among others. In addition, we have subjects that address statistics, a crucial tool for the construction and validation of knowledge. There are also other topics directly applied to medicine, such as electrophysiology. Prior knowledge of mathematics facilitates the understanding and analysis of this data,” he enumerates.